Thursday, 16 December 2010

Feather River College Sued for Racial Discrimination

Despite great strides made in eliminating all forms racism based on race, California racial discrimination attorneys still continue to come across cases where people of color have faced racial or color bias. A former assistant head football coach at Feather River College has filed a racial discrimination lawsuit against the institution.

The lawsuit, filed by Eric Small, alleges that the 2010 athletic department of Feather River College was racist in its decision to cut black football players from the team. The lawsuit mentions Feather River College, director Merle Trueblood and head football coach James Johnson.

In 2010, Small was informed by the new coach that the face of the nearly all-black football team would change. And change it certainly did. The football team changed from an 80% black team to an 80% white team. According to the lawsuit, there has been a persistent strategy of discrimination by Trueblood, Head Coach Johnson and an assistant football coach at Feather River College who was allegedly, openly racist. Several claims of discrimination are included in lawsuit, among them one that involves a promise that Small would be given a coach position. The lawsuit alleges that the coaching position was then given to Johnson, who is a Caucasian. Small is African-American.

According to Small, he was informed in July that because of statewide enrollment caps, 21 new recruits to the team would have to be informed that they no longer had a place on the football team. These were players who had already booked airplane tickets, had applied for financial aid, and had made accommodation arrangements. According to the lawsuit, this made Small look like he had deceived the players.

Small then says he tried to get these players a place on the football team at Sacramento City College. Following that, Trueblood filed a complaint against him with the California College Athletic Commission, claiming that Small acted as an agent for the Sacramento college to the detriment of Feather River College.

This entire mess soon led to Small allegedly facing severely deteriorating working conditions at Feather River College. In August 2000, he was forced to apply for stress leave, and has since resigned.